Characters and prayer.

[Rath Darkblade]

As some of you may know, my MC is a 10th-century, Icelandic, female teenager, on the cusp of womanhood. (Phew. What a challenge!)

In the story I'm currently writing, she prays to Thor and uses Early Modern English, i.e. "thee", "thou", "thy" etc. (I looked up how to use these properly, of course).

I'm not Christian, but I think it sounds authentic and adds an extra layer of drama. The pre-Christian Norse had no standardized 'holy book', but relied on oral tradition and sacrifice, so I'm more or less improvising the words, and trying to inject passion into them, to make them sound more convincing.

But I wonder if this is detracting from the story, since - unfortunately - one beta reader commented that it sounds tiresome. His comment says: "Your character doesn't use this in her every-day dealings with other, so why would she when she prays?" He also commented that most real-life churches don't use these any more.

That's a fair question. I could go through and change all these, but I think it sounds better if I keep these. I know that the Roman Catholics still use Latin for some church services, and google tells me that some churches (e.g. Anglicans, Quakers, Church of Latter-Day Saints) uses Early Modern. So it's not completely outlandish.

What's your view?

 

[Hammer]

I went to a Church of England school, and grew up with a few standard texts, one of which is called "the lord's prayer". It starts with "our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name". More "modern" version is "Our father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name" and, maybe because it's what I grew up with, but the original sounds a lot more sincere to me. The newer version sounds a lot more like "my mate Pete who works down the bike-shop" than an invocation to a great deity.